


The Most Perilous Performance Devised by Man

by baehj2915



Series: Shaw's Traveling Circus of Extra-ordinaries [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe - Circus, Charles the prognosticator, Erik the knifethrower, M/M, Mutant Rights, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Is that permission to visit your tent?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Absolutely not. Why would I be so inclined? You’re quite rude, you know.” </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Parts of me can be quite nice.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“You are staggering. You don’t even know me and what you do know of me you don’t like.” </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“That’s not true.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Don’t lie to a telepath.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“It’s a bit true. Not entirely. I just think you’re wrong-headed about everything.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Perilous Performance Devised by Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired a [circus AU prompt from pearlo](http://pearlo.tumblr.com/post/30081639801/thoughtsnotunveiled-mrkinch-pearlo-today) I saw on tumblr the other day. I wasn't sure why I set it in the 1930s until I was nearly done I remembered everything I've ever seen about circus life was about circuses in the 30s. Freaks, Carnivale, other things. 
> 
> Anyway, in this I imagine Charles and Raven to be kinda young. I don't make it specific, but Charles can't be older than 21. This is set in the early years of the Great Depression.

~*~

 

Charles set his bucket down in front of the men guarding the water car of the train. There was a scrawny, younger man with a greenish tinge to his skin and an older man with webbed fingers and a forked tongue. 

The young man, often called Toad, pulled at the fraying lapel of Charles’ shabby bathrobe. He always made a show of saying things before pulling the release valve. 

“Lookin’ a little ratty tatty there, Princess. What, the butler out with the clap or something?” 

He bit back a sigh, as that would only prolong the process. “Could I have my water? I have to get ready for my show.”

Toad affected a posh voice, “A steam bath for Little Lord Fauntleroy.” But he finally released the tap, letting the water pour from the car’s spigot. 

Charles took a deep breath and ignored the laughter and the bright points of mild distaste toward him, retrieving his bucket of water for washing and leaving swiftly. 

They were performing later that evening, their first night in Youngstown. The swing of hammers drilling spikes into the ground and beams being raised for the tents were all around. All the carts for hot dogs and beer and popcorn and candy floss were being assembled. He was off to take a bath, before heading into town to post flyers and drum up interest in the show. All the more presentable employees of Shaw’s Traveling Circus of Extra-ordinaries had to take turns pressing the public from city to city. 

Charles pulled his weight, he thought, but still seemed to be the biggest outcast in this group of outcasts. He knew the others needled him precisely because he didn’t needle back. But his background was obviously the larger part of it. It was all part of the hassle and hullabaloo of being new to any tightly knit group. Circus folk, he suspected, had more reason than most to be closed off to outsiders. 

He had never explicitly mentioned his past, the kind of family he came from, the kind of wealth. But it was obvious and off-putting. His queer accent, from a life spent straddling a mansion in New York and a townhouse in London, was even more so. The denizens of the circus quickly resorted to calling him “The Prince” as a nickname if they were feeling generous, and “Princess” if they were not. 

The upside was that Raven was fortunately spared a good portion of the suspicion and teasing. She fit in more easily. Living as they had, in high times, in the Xavier family mansion, going to cotillions and garden parties and operas from a small age, Charles had almost entirely forgotten that Raven was never born to that life of luxury. No, only Charles was. And now that there were hard times for virtually everybody, Raven seemed to return to that by-the-skin-of-one’s-teeth lifestyle much more easily. 

She’d never been happier, Charles realized with equal parts fondness and bitterness.

There was no line outside the men’s bath tent, for which Charles’ almost leapt for joy. He’d picked a time early enough when people were still setting up their tents for that reason specifically but a wait for the facilities was always unpredictable. And when he saw there was no one inside, Charles did jump a little bit in excitement. 

The men’s bath tent had a boiler for heating water and two tubs. Most people just stood above their buckets and washed with sponge and soap outside their own tents a quick clean. But Charles was going out in town and needed to wash his hair. Also he was looking forward to having a hot bath in a tub that wasn’t half-filled with water a dozen other people had used before him. 

Used washing water was something he’d never had to experience before the circus. 

Charles waited patiently as the water heated, stoking the coals in the boiler. Naturally, once the water in the tub was steaming, he’d set out his sponge and soap, and was about to disrobe, the flap of the tent fluttered open. 

He was an inch away from changing whoever’s mind so he could just be alone for ten bloody minutes, when he saw it was Erik. 

Erik was perhaps more isolated than Charles, but it seemed to be of his own making. Charles had never read his mind, not fully, but he could feel the tense pitch of Erik’s active, if vexed, mind often enough that it piqued Charles’ curiosity. What Charles could glean without intruding into Erik’s mind was a pervasive sense of determination. It hurried his every step. To Charles that seemed incongruous with a life as a knife-throwing performance act in the circus. 

Normally, people’s minds battered at Charles and he longed to get away. With Erik, though, he ached to peak behind the shrouded veils of his mind to know more. 

A desire made more astounding by the fact that Charles had never even met Erik. The man was something of a ghostly legend to the others in the circus, so he was fairly swiftly pointed out to Charles, but not introduced. Charles had only seen him from afar, caught his deadly accurate act once or twice. 

Erik did pause upon seeing Charles. He was surprised, but Charles didn’t want to push to find out why. He had clear lines when it came to telepathic manners. Unfortunately no one else ever knew about them to appreciate his restraint. 

“Good morning,” Charles said, hands hesitating around the folds of his robe. 

For a moment Erik’s stormy grey eyes turned to Charles with a sort of perplexity. Charles felt a cloud from his mind of what he would call amused derision, as though affronted anyone might find any morning good and have the nerve to voice it aloud. But Erik grunted in assent and immediately poured his water in the other bathtub, not opting for the boiler. 

Charles couldn’t help himself.

“Blimey, it’s awfully brisk out for a cold bath, isn’t it?”

Erik leveled him with an unimpressed stare before stripping from his dirty waistcoat and shrugging out of his suspenders. 

“Don’t let yours go cold if you don’t like it.” 

It was the first time Charles had actually heard his voice and he was unspeakably curious about Erik’s unplaceable accent. He knew he wouldn’t be able to bathe or eat or think all day if he didn’t find out. So Charles allowed himself a little loosening of his manners, for clarity’s sake, and spoke _home_ into Erik’s mind. He tried to glance as little as possible, but he saw Erik as a tiny child in a Polish shtetl, then in Germany while still young, but mostly many years in New York City amongst disparate groups of immigrants, and most recently in Pittsburgh. 

Satisfied, Charles looked to see if Erik had noticed, but he was turned away, unaware, down to rather mean looking long johns doing a poor job of covering Erik’s similarly mean frame. He was naturally rawboned—Charles could see it in flashes of gawky long limbs in memories—but seemed to be pulled taut and unnecessarily lean. It was that cagey sort of skinny that worked itself into tortured muscle. He was all gristle, no fat.

By comparison, Charles knew he looked like a spoilt child, still soft, still pale, still underworked. 

A combination of that feeling, and Charles’ red-faced panic at Erik about to drop his drawers, made him turn his back quickly in order to slip out of his robe and underclothes. 

He heard the small splash of Erik jumping into his cold tub of water, but something peculiar flicked on in Erik’s mind that Charles instantly knew didn’t have a thing to do with bathing. He hadn’t noticed until it changed, but the tension Erik always exuded lessened slightly. Only it was because of Charles. He knew because whenever people were thinking specifically about him he felt a peculiar mirror sensation that was impossible to avoid. 

He’d explained it to Raven once by saying a body is capable of hearing multiple conversations in one room, but ignoring all of them until someone mentions his name. A person is so attuned to themselves and their own name that once they hear it, they can’t hear anything else. 

And when people were deliberately thinking of Charles, he gave himself a little leeway in sniffing out the reasons why. 

Erik’s thought about Charles was a jumble of mild colors and emotions—amusement, appreciation, curiosity—and words that weren’t all in English. The primary focus however was the word _tuchis_ , which caused Charles to hurriedly slide into the tub to hide himself when he realized what that meant. 

After a minute of letting his mortification subside into the hot water, Charles’ curiosity returned again. With Charles’ _distraction_ no longer visible, Erik’s tension returned to its normal, vigilant level.

“My name is Charles, by the way.” 

“I know,” Erik said, not stopping from scrubbing his feet. 

Charles reached for his soap and sponge to appear like he was using the bath for its intended purpose. No—to _use_ the bath for its intended purpose. 

“Oh. It’s just that we were never properly introduced.” 

Erik laughed at that, but it wasn’t a terribly nice laugh. Charles’ realized the reason Erik was amused by him was because he thought Charles was silly. _Silly and pretty like a fluffy dog_ was the exact thought. 

“This isn’t the right place for proper introductions.” 

“Well, yes, it’s the bath—“

“I mean it doesn’t matter. Look at what we do, the people we are. Is this where manners and introductions are important? Who do we have to impress?”

Charles felt bruised by Erik’s words. He’d meant more than the tent, more than the circus even; Erik was talking about the dispossessed state of the world. There was a well of deep loathing hiding beneath Erik’s amused disdain. Charles could touch it. That loathing wasn’t for Charles specifically, but for Erik himself, and for the whole world. He saw the circus as a secluded group of freaks who weren’t allowed out amongst the charmed and the privileged. It was unfair and unjust, the way other people hated and feared them. Erik had a great deal of hate and it appeared to be for everyone.

It was awkward, but Charles wasn’t about to let a little thing like being in the bath stop him from speaking out words this man needed to hear. 

“We have each other to impress, to remain friendly and civil to. The times being hard and the world being cruel doesn’t mean we should generate more hardness and cruelty.” 

The hint of a sneer on Erik’s face smoothed out at Charles’ words, but he still looked dour. 

“That is exactly what it means.”

“I don’t believe so.” 

Erik seemed withdrawn enough that Charles thought it a poor idea to pursue conversation. Except Erik surprised him by doing the job for him.

“They said you were you were toffee-nosed, but they didn’t say you were so naïve.” 

Charles frowned. “I don’t think attempting to be kind is naïve.” 

Erik snorted. “How did someone like you wind up here? I’d bet my last dollar your parents got caught up in some scheme and lost it all in the Crash.” 

“Yes,” Charles conceded, without subjecting himself to telling Erik the entire story—with all his disdain for Charles and his ilk. 

Of course Charles’ family lost money in the Market Crash. A great deal of money.  
But it wasn’t solely the Depression that had sent them to the bosom of Shaw’s Circus. The financial depravity of the Depression exposed the moral depravity in Kurt Marko, Charles’ stepfather, which he’d always known to be weak. The inheritance Charles was supposed to receive at twenty-one had been leveraged against Marko’s stocks before the collapse. Charles had fully intended to claim a suit, but Raven accidentally slipped into her true form during a village fair. 

They had to run back to the mansion from the stunned crowd. Once they got home, Kurt made it abundantly clear they would find no refuge there and it was no longer a place they could call home. Pressed for time and unwilling to see if altering so many minds at once would work, Charles and Raven ran for the nearest train with scarcely a full suitcase to each of them. 

Whispers—of how very unusual people could find work, or at least a hot meal—led them to Shaw’s Traveling Circus of Extra-ordinaries. Though it was nothing like Charles was used to, it was a godsend. Work was scarce everywhere. For a while Charles had worked as a store clerk while Raven was waitressing, but when she was laid off, Charles had to go with her. They traveled to the interior of the country, hearing a body could get work going from farm to farm. 

But the danger of exposure migrant work was disconcertingly high. The down side of being fed and housed for a few days of labor was staying in a house of strangers, who would likely see Raven’s true form as demonic or beastly. It put a strain on both of them—Raven struggling to maintain control and Charles keeping them from unduly prying thoughts all hours of the day. 

On a train ride from Missouri to Kansas—a rail they’d hopped—they met a tramp with scarring on his face who almost instantly recognized them as different. Charles had been able to sense it on occasion. Mutants, as Charles tentatively called his extraordinary peers, whom he believed to all share a common genetic mutation, seemed to have an innate feel for one another, though without the ability to name that sense. Unless they had telepathic abilities they couldn’t know each other certainly. But the man on the train guessed well enough that he told Raven and Charles about Shaw’s Circus.

After two and a half months, Raven was right at home, while Charles still bridled against the course of his fate. 

Raven played many roles in the circus, because she was fantastically able to do so. She’d always been athletic and extraordinarily gifted when it came to childhood tumbling and acrobatics. Here she was learning so much more. Some nights she would walk the tightrope. Some nights she would wear the body of a buxom blonde in a Hottentot outfit and hand things to Shaw, the Ringleader. But her biggest draw was Mystique. Billed as an exotic wonder from the Orient, she would appear in the sideshow in her true form—which people assumed was blue paint—and perform contortions for nickels in a golden burlesque outfit that matched her eyes. 

In a performing day Charles welcomed paying visitors in a small, dark room thick with incense as Professor X. Dressed in a Sikh turban, cascaded in bangles for showy, occultish effect, and blue and gold robes one might find on a wizard in a pantomime, he pulled thoughts out of people’s heads and said it was the work of a crystal ball. Just accurate enough that people felt a little mystified but not so accurate they got frightened. He’d throw in a carefully worded fortune and people seemed pleased enough. It was actually a bit of fun, but not at all what Charles wanted to be doing with his life. 

He’d wanted to prove to the world that people like him and Raven, like the others at the circus, prove scientifically, that they were no different from everyone else and there was nothing to fear from them. He wanted to be back in Oxford, finishing his degree, studying science to one day help people like him. 

“And you never learned a trade.” 

Charles sunk lower in the water. “I was in school.” 

“What for?”

“Biology.” 

Charles knew instinctively not to say genetics. He was gleaning from the sharp steel lines of Erik’s mind that he was quite bright, his anger stemming from social awareness. Charles wasn’t being mannerly at all, by that point, in digging around in Erik’s mind. Then neither was Erik, so he felt justified. But Charles was not a believer in eugenics, unlike so many of his professors had been. It was not something he wanted to begin arguing about, because there surely would be one lurking in Erik’s pride and outrage. 

“Naturally.” 

“What do you have against Biology?”

“It’s not particularly useful. Not now anyway.” 

“You’re wrong,” Charles said testily. “It’s always useful to study life. What it is not is financially advantageous. Something that hadn’t mattered before I lost my inheritance.” 

Erik chuckled that time, showing off a predatory grin. Charles was particularly drawn to his teeth. They were nice teeth, if a little tar-stained, big and almost sharp. He had a strange urge to be near them and feel them on his skin. 

Charles had always had a desire to go toward dangerous things, rather than away.

He rose so quickly from the tub that Charles had barely enough time to look away from his slim, slippery form. He had definitely seen a bit of Erik’s penis, which made his heart race a little faster. He wished he hadn’t glimpsed it because now he wanted to see the whole thing. Instead he had bits and pieces of Erik’s naked body without the whole picture. 

The curiosity was driving him mad. 

Erik kneeled next to Charles, without the courtesy of grabbing a towel to cover himself, and leaned one arm heavily on the ridge of the tub. Though Charles was politely restraining himself from looking, Erik had no such compunctions, openly looking over Charles’ body. Erik let his fingers dip and drag through the water, while Charles, even though he felt childish doing it, covered his tackle with his sponge.

“I like your voice, do you know that?”

Charles’ own inclinations, his eager fixations on the male anatomy aside, Erik obviously had lived a different life from Charles. Charles had gone to boarding school and was familiar with shame-filled lustful thoughts from boys and tentative touches in the dark. He was, however, unaccustomed to a mode of behavior where one could make direct sexual overtures toward a perfect stranger.

“I’m not so naïve as to be ignorant of what you’re doing,” Charles paused to speak directly into Erik’s mind to make his point. _And I would appreciate it if you saved your advances for a time when not anyone could walk in._

That only made Erik grin more broadly and mischievously.

“Is that permission to visit your tent?”

“Absolutely not. Why would I be so inclined? You’re quite rude, you know.” 

“Parts of me can be quite nice.”

“You are staggering. You don’t even know me and what you do know of me you don’t like.” 

“That’s not true.”

“Don’t lie to a telepath.”

“It’s a bit true. Not entirely. I just think you’re wrong-headed about everything.” Erik shrugged at Charles’ frown, but kept a smirk on his face. “Let me get to know you then.”

“I have a deal. When you can tell me there’s something you love about the world—and remember you won’t be able to lie to me, so it has something you really, truly enjoy, something profound, something that makes your life worth living—then you can get to know me.” 

“I can think of something that would make us both happy.”

Charles leaned away from Erik’s ever-intruding form. The smugness slid from Erik’s face and his hand stilled in the water. 

“You’re serious.”

“Completely.” 

Erik looked at him curiously, but Charles reigned in his desire to see what the other man was thinking. 

“You’re crazy.”

“Possibly.” 

After a moment, where Charles was pleased just to realize Erik was considering it, Erik said, “Okay.”

Charles didn’t want to push his luck, but he was surprised. “Okay?”

“That’s what I said.” 

Charles smiled, trying not to feel terribly triumphant. “Okie dokie,” he murmured, trying to slip further into the water that was fast losing heat. 

Erik frowned at him with a suspicious eye— _stupid maddening kid, silly American phrase in a silly English voice_. Then he stood up abruptly, before Charles could be considerate of his modesty because someone obviously needed to be, and did see everything quite clearly at eye level. 

The sound of rustling clothes passed for a long while until Erik cleared his throat.

He turned slightly from his position in the tub to see Erik mostly dressed, his suspenders hanging loose around his knees, undershirt clinging to his damp chest, and tucking his comb into his pocket. 

It was obvious Erik wanted to say something but instead fiddled with the edges of his waistcoat without even buttoning it properly. 

“Do you have an answer already?”

Erik rolled his eyes. “No. I do not live in the same ‘Blue Skies’, Ziegfeld production you do. I need to think about it… I have a question.” 

He left off at such a long pause Charles pushed a little reassurance in his direction. 

“Isn’t that the sort of thing a mind reader—“ Erik sighed. “Couldn’t you find that out for me? You could just do it. Couldn’t you?”

Charles bit his lip. Because he certainly could. In fact the only reason he posed such a wild stipulation was because he knew thoughts of love and happiness lurked somewhere beneath Erik’s rage. He felt it in the flurried snippets of Erik’s memories of home. 

“I suppose I might be able to. But I didn’t ask only to know the answer.” 

The warring emotions on his face clearly showed Erik knew exactly what he meant by that. Erik left the tent with a sort of grunt of recognition, leaving Charles to wonder if Erik would even bother to think about it. 

But Erik did think about it and took his time.

The circus went about its regular routine. Charles performed every day, plucking little ideas out of people’s heads, and putting it back to them in the vaguely remembered style of nursery school riddles from behind a crystal ball. When he wasn’t performing he would catch up with Raven before sleep, or wander the quieting bedlam that was the circus fairgrounds at night, not entirely searching out the combative melody of Erik’s mind. 

The third evening of Shaw’s Circus performing in Youngstown found Charles alone in his tent. Raven was out with Azazel again, dancing and drinking with most of the other performers, enjoying someone who never expected or wanted to hide herself. It was their most persistent argument of late, but Charles was resolutely not thinking about it. He was tired. 

It had been horribly hot all day, humid and bright. And Charles had been trapped, sweating buckets, in the turban and ridiculous heavy robes, including a dark blue, velvetine outer robe. He’d cast them all off, left only in a pair of boxer shorts he had picked up from a church clothes bin that were too big for him. Part of his costume included make-up and a false beard. Red marks from adhesive still clung to his face and kohl was still smeared all around his eyes.

He was standing like that in his tent, trying to get a decent wash with only a rag and a bucket of cold water, when Erik came in. 

Erik paused halfway through the door flap, but with a nod came and strung the tent entrance closed for the illusion of privacy. 

Even though there was no electricity in the tents—everything was lit by oil lamp and as many candles as could be mustered—Charles could see Erik looked more nervous than he’d ever seen him before. Charles wanted to be considerate of that but it was hilarious contrast to Erik’s costume. It was simple, really, but quite silly. Like many male performers he wore a sleeveless leotard, covered by tight leggings that came up very high, and calf-boots. Erik’s trousers were black with red triangles all around the waistline. The top part had the same design around the collar. 

Of course he had no sleeves so everyone could see his arms when he threw his knives. 

He had two of those with him too, attached to a holster around his hips. 

Charles thought of searching for a bathrobe, but he rather liked the feeling of Erik’s intense eyes on him. 

Erik was angry. Charles could see that without really looking. But he was also intrigued and wistful and aroused and a miasma of little delicate strings of feelings that led to a mire of things that Charles couldn’t have examined at that moment, but desperately wanted to. What was clear was that Erik had definitely been thinking about Charles’ proposal. 

Erik had definitely been thinking of Charles. 

Without preamble, he pulled one of his throwing knives from its holster, examined it for a moment, flipped it, and caught the sharp end easily in the flat of his hand. He extended the handle out toward Charles, encouraging him to it. 

Charles did. It was flat from end to end, very narrow, but heavier than he expected. The dull handle was only slightly rounded. It got thicker in the middle and tapered out at each end. There were elegant lines following the subtle curve of the blade down to its tip. 

“I made it,” Erik said unexpectedly. “I make all of them. That’s my— That’s what I love. Metal. Making it, forging it. Discovering its secrets.” He hesitatingly stepped forward, doubt now flowing from him. Charles caught the conflicting _why am I bothering with this for him_ and _why do I want to do this so badly for him_. 

“It isn’t much,” he added, “but its something. I feel it in my bones, in my blood.” 

Unspoken, but hanging over his words Charles could see _it keeps me alive, keeps my heart going_ like a burning red sun over the horizon. And he could see more. Warm memories of childhood, a figure who had no known but could only be Erik’s mother, and pride, and pale, desperate yearning, and so much potential. 

Charles could feel the bubbling awe of these emotions as clearly as though they were his own. 

Without a doubt in his mind, Charles stepped forward to embrace Erik, sliding a hand up the bare warmth of his arm and kissing his cheek. 

“No, Erik, I think this is great answer, and an excellent beginning.”

 

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> The next part will be Erik's reaction/background piece. I'm calling it _Troupe of Remarkable Trained Pigs_ because Mags is a dick and it makes me laugh. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this and what's to come. :D


End file.
